In typical cellular wireless communication systems, user equipment devices (UEs) (e.g., cell phones, personal digital assistants, laptops, netbooks, tablets, and/or other wirelessly equipped devices) subscribe to service from a given cellular wireless service provider. A service provider may operate one or more networks (sometimes referred to as radio access networks (RANs)) that include base stations that radiate to define one or more wireless coverage areas (e.g., sectors) in which the subscriber UEs can operate.
Generally, wireless communications between a given UE and a serving base station in a RAN are carried out in accordance with one or more air interface protocols such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA (e.g., Long Term Evolution (LTE) or Wireless Operability for Microwave Access (WiMAX)), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) (e.g., 1×RTT and 1×EV-DO), GSM, GPRS, UMTS, EDGE, iDEN, TDMA, AMPS, MMDS, WIFI, and BLUETOOTH, or others now known or later developed. Through each base station (and corresponding RAN), a UE can obtain connectivity to other networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PTSN) and the Internet. In addition to base stations, each RAN may include one or more radio network controllers (RNCs), or the like, which may be integrated with or otherwise in communication with the base stations, and which may include or be in communication with a switch or gateway that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks. With this arrangement, a UE that is positioned within coverage of the RAN may communicate with a base station and in turn, via the base station, with other served devices or with other entities on the transport network.
Some wireless service providers provide additional functionality to establish and host real-time media conferences over a packet-switched (or circuit-switched) network between multiple UEs. A conference server, such as a multipoint conference unit (MCU) for instance, can reside functionally in the network and can operate as a bridging or switching device between the participating stations, to support the conference session.
A participating UE may initiate a conference session by sending to the conference server a session setup message that identifies the other desired participant(s). The server may then seek to connect each of the designated other participants, such as by forwarding the session setup message or sending a new session setup message to each other party. Ultimately, the server would establish a conference leg with each participating UE, including the initiating UE, and the server would then bridge the legs together so that the UEs can communicate with each other. The communications between the UEs could involve voice, video, and/or other media that is exchanged in real-time via the server. A signaling mechanism such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) could be used to initialize the conference and to set up each conference leg. Further, digitized media could be packetized and carried between each participating UE, for example, using the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) or other protocol or mechanism.